Page 7 of Cashmere Cruelty
I feel my face go very, very red. “Oh, well, you should really… try it on yourself,” I stammer, trying to draw back. “Skin tones can be… deceptive. I’ll leave you to it?—”
“Not a chance, Ms. Flowers.”
He grabs my other arm, lightning-quick. How in the hell is he so fast? That’s not the kind of speed that goes with that amount of muscle. Sure, he isn’t steroid-ripped, but still…
Before I can shake myself out of my reverie, the stranger’s got both my wrists bound.
That’s what snaps me back to reality. Customers with a poor sense of personal space? I’ve had those. Customers who speak like a phone sex hotline? Rare, but also not unheard of. In my line of work, there’s no such thing as too weird. Whatever the client wants, you go along with it, and you do it with a smile.
But no client’s evertied me upbefore.
“What are you doing?” I squeak, doing my best not to let my voice crack. I test my bindings: the tie’s not looped too tight. I could break out of it, if I wanted to.
“I should be the one asking that,” the man rumbles, pressing me up against the changing room wall. I take a step back, but that’s all I’m allowed. Soon, there is nowhere left to go. “What areyoudoing?”
I’m suddenly very aware of how charged the air feels. How in the hell did I miss it until now? Am I so used to indulging my customers’ every whim that I couldn’t tell I was being cornered in my own place of work while someone cranked the sexual tension to an eleven out of ten and broke off the knob?
Apparently, yes.
“I’m… helping you?” I venture.
“Wrong.” The man’s breath is on my cheek now, his cologne overpowering in the small space. He smells like pine and ozone—the darkening sky before a thunderstorm. “You’re denying yourself.”
“Pardon me?”
“You’ve wanted me ever since I stepped foot in here,” he states, matter-of-factly. “That’s why you ‘accidentally’ walked in on me, right?”
“Listen up, James Bondage,” I snap, feeling my hackles raising.So much for being polite no matter what.“I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but?—”
“Oh, you know exactlywhat I’m insinuating.” He sinks his face into my neck and breathes, long and deep. “Are you really trying to tell me you weren’t looking earlier, Ms. Flowers?Gawking?”
I squirm, but it’s not out of fear. More like shame: what must I smell like after such a long, hard day of work? My own perfume’s bound to have evaporated by now. No dollar store mix lasts that long.
But that’s not even in the top fifty of things I should be worrying about. What with the huge, half-naked stranger looming over me and all. “I was just… surprised,” I croak out.
“You saw something you liked. You took it.”
“I didn’t take anything.”
“Not yet,” the stranger concedes. “But things are made to be touched. Aren’t they? Isn’t that what you said?”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“You want me.” He runs his free hand down my neck.Touchingme. As if I’m made to be… “And that’s a good thing. Because, you see, Ms. Flowers…”
His blue eyes meet mine.
“I want you, too.”
The revelation shouldn’t shock me, but it does. Because, out of all the boyfriends I’ve ever had; all the strangers I gave a chance to in the dark, long before I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble?—
No one has ever said those words to me.
And then, as if wanting to prove it, the stranger closes the last of the space between us.
I gasp. There’s no mistaking the hardness pressing against my thigh, just like there’s no mistaking how badly it’s affecting me. Through my thin satin blouse and lace bra, my nipples are visibly standing to attention.
I pray he hasn’t noticed the state of me, but it’s a short-lived hope. I can see him looking, licking his lips like a wolf cornering its prey.